Housed inside an early 20th-century landmark building, the Royal Danish Academy of Music of Copenhagen relives as luxury hotel. A feast of eccentric furnishings, unexpected chromatic palettes, fine untreated materials and a foot in the past: here’s the major guidelines that Scandinavian studio Wingårds did stick to in order to revamp Denmark’s former Conservatory of Music.

The Swedish firm specialising in architecture, interior design, urban and landscape planning has remodelled a historic 5,500 square-meter Neoclassical venue in the heart of the Danish capital, first erected in 1903 by architect Martin Borch for an insurance company.

“The building is a fine example of Danish Classicism – a more sophisticated and stripped down version of what can be found in Sweden”, practice principal Gert Wingårdh is keen to point out.

The architectural response aimed at restyling the site once home to the Royal Danish Academy of Music and later dismissed for many years was specifically based on preserving its majestic sense of space and turn-of-the-century details like the original windows, mouldings and wood and marble staircase.

A bunch of modern additions were nonetheless introduced so to freshen up the building’s charming retro feel: see the ultra-contemporary furniture selection, quirky colour tones, and natural materials of the likes of marble, timber, leather, and wool.

Indeed, Nobis Hotel Copenhagen’s 70 bedrooms match the original decorative patterns and sophisticated Herringbone parquetry with XXL total-white windows flooding the space with daylight, along with hints of saturated green-blue, steel bed frames, functional wardrobes, modern sofas, and a range of useful accessories.

The cherry on top? A handful of 100% surprising features, like the fresh new concrete check-in desk in the reception, a comfortable SPA area, bathrooms clad in grey Bardiglio marble, an imposing stairway, ad hoc lighting fixtures, carpets, and finishes in glass and copper plates inspired by Le Corbusier’s legendary Sainte Marie de La Tourette monastery in Lyon.